Update on my faulty uSDX "white button" from Banggood.

Trying to get Banggood to take the faulty radio back didn't go too well. but eventually they offered me 51 quid, half the purchase price. I accepted because by then I had uploaded some new firmware and cleaned up some terrible soldering. I intended to add some photos of the soldering into this video but ran out of time. Now running GW8RDI's V4.00 via GitHub and the radio is performing so well and providing great fun. Basically turned a poorly constructed sdr into a great little bit of kit. The tr uSDX is great too and worked straight out of the box it has to be said.

[@mewrongway]

So you got Banged Good! I would never buy there again myself! Thanks for all your great videos. 👍👍👍

[@shanehogarth6373]

Thanks for watching and for the comment. Will be doing some updates soon, apologies for such a long period without updating. Had a lot of life type issues going on of late. 73 Shane YO2EWL - G7EWL

[@mewrongway]

@@shanehogarth6373 Can't wait! 👍👍

[@TheFretman2]

Glad to see someone's bench looks as bad (or good!) as mine.

[@Bass-guitarist]

Just had mine delivered from Amazon, within the first 20 mins had a CW qso with a german station. Need to play with tye TX out and bias settings. Yes my RE clicks when tuning too! For the money theres great and as you say provide a great platform for experimentation. Great channel and I have subscribed since watching my first video of yours, you seem to be right on my level. Kind regards de Graham M0KTY

[@shanehogarth6373]

Grahame, thanks. I'm so sorry I've not made any updates to the channel recently, I've had a few "real life" issues to attend to and radio/electronics have taken a bit of a back step because of this. I will start making some more videos however in the near future. Glad you have enjoyed the content so far and comments like yours make it worthwhile. Yes great little radios so long as you keep in mind their obvious limitations. I've had a lot of fun with mine and made a lot of contacts. 73. Shane YO2EWL - G7EWL

[@tomsworkshop5856]

"Bloody lovely radio" I say that about mine too! In a way I'm glad you didn't end up sending it back. :)

[@shanehogarth6373]

Haha, yeah. Has to be one of the best value for money rigs available. Really enjoying it and just about to watch your other videos. 73s

[@tomsworkshop5856]

@@shanehogarth6373 Well, I hope you enjoy them. I've got one planned on the most inexpensive Antenna Tuner I've found yet. $48 from Walmart Canada... I've unboxed it, but I'm leery about hooking my good radio to it, so I've got another uSDX that will be used.... If ether survives will be seen. lol!! I'm currious is you ever did the resistor install as you cleaned up the bargan basement soldering job? 73!!

[@shanehogarth6373]

@@tomsworkshop5856 No not yet. I am waiting for a little spectrum analyser to arrive and thought I would wait until I had that set up and available. It's odd isn't it that we both had the same component missing. The schematic from the forum certainly shows it as being there.

[@tomsworkshop5856]

@@shanehogarth6373 It would seem that back at the plant they must have decided the part's cost didn't increase or effect performance enough to make it necessary. So, I'm actually looking forward to watching your before and after testing! I've subscribed so I don't miss it. I've now modified 3 of these radios with good results. My go-to firmware is 2.00c, seems to be quite stable, and doesn't have that much clicking when changing frequencies.

[@shanehogarth6373]

@@tomsworkshop5856 that's interesting Tom, thanks. I noticed today that the crackle when timing with the encoder knob wasn't anything like as bad as it was on the video. So theres some.sort of variable there going on as well on mine.

[@johnnorth9355]

Bought a second hand 'Black Brick' version a couple of weeks back and after several days of playing with settings I finally made a couple of QSO's one to Portugal and one to Italy. The audio out is very poor and muffled (any ideas?) but receive is brilliant. Use a 2EZRo Mag loop so a very portable setup. Four watts on 20 is the best I can get but the battery lasts forever ! I will open it up sometime soon for a look but experience on other bits -ATU's etc.- is that the soldering is often not the best. Be interested to see if mine has a missing resistor ? M7BLC

[@cliveklein3076]

It's a great little radio, mine runs on r1.02w firmware which runs great.. I'm looking into changing the usdx screen logo to my call sign.. The popping with the encoder is down to the LCD I have that issue myself...

[@tomnone8378]

Good job mate ;)) i want to do it in my;) better firmware....

[@siffler1234]

since changing my tx drive setting to "2" and fiddling with pa bias settings the "windy mic syndrome" has stopped, also the tx drive didn't change the power output, they all register 3.5w

[@siffler1234]

nice to see another messy ham lol i'm terrible, even the kitchen has a solder station

[@shanehogarth6373]

That's interesting. Also yesterday I had a qso with a friend who knows me and my sound well, he said I sounded more bassy than normal. I was using the USDX mic which is moving coil I think, and plugged up a Baofeng mic I had to hand. He said it improved it and I sounded much better and to his ears it had a higher audio drive. The baofeng uses electret mic insert but appears to be directly compatible. Cheers and thanks for the comments. If you haven't already subscribe as I intend to do a few videos of this journey with these excellent little rigs. Cheers.